They say I am sick.

Cancer has invaded my body, is that what they mean or are they referring to the way I have lived my life? But then, they have no idea of the things I have done.

I am certainly sick of lying here with nothing but four white walls to stare at and my own thoughts echoing continually around my head. I am definitely sick of how my life has ground to a shuddering halt.

The morphine regularly administered intravenously numbs the pain in my body and plays tricks on my mind. Icy fingers chill my bones, as I lay motionless in this bed listening to familiar voices from long ago. Distant echoes from my past.

Remember the lake?

Ah yes, I remember.

I was much younger then, full of life, not diseased and dying as I am now.

It was a bright, crisp winter's day, the Sabbath, a day of worship for the believers. We listened to the soft crunch of freshly fallen snow under our feet as we slowly made our way through the dense wood, gloved hand in gloved hand. Behind us remained two trails of flattened snow footprints, mine large and deep, yours small and hardly denting the snow at all, so light were you; so young, so beautiful.

Plumes of warm mist escaped from our lungs, hung in the air like formless spirits, and then danced away on the bitter cold wind.

When we cleared the frost laden, skeletal trees, their branches bent down under the weight of the new layer of snow so that it seemed they were trying to snag us with their bony twigs, we saw the lake. It stretched out in front of us wide and frozen, the surface covered in white.

Such a long time ago and yet I hear your sobs and I feel your fear as though we are there now. I still feel the excitement that coursed through my whole body making me tremble far more than the cold winter air ever did.

You were the first and the best by far. You were the start of my real life. With you, I realised the fantasies that, for years, had occupied my every waking hour.

The automated dispenser whirrs as it releases another measured dose of morphine into my cancer-ridden body. They have increased the amount pumped into my veins in an attempt to soften the pain that ravages through my diseased organs.

"I'm afraid there's not long now," I hear someone say. This voice is outside my head, although it seems far away and I have no idea who says it or to whom they are speaking.

I close my eyes to the harsh glare of the artificial light in this hospital room as my mind wanders through my memories like a ghost drifting eternally through a haunted house. A morphine-induced haze covers every thought and the powerful drug flowing relentlessly through my veins heightens every stored memory.

Remember the boathouse?

I know that voice, another one of my special children, another memory from my past.

Flashes of springtime explode in my mind.

I see dragonflies, their bodies ablaze with electric blues and greens, flitting busily from reed to reed at the edge of the rippling lake. I can feel the warm, egg yoke yellow sun falling lovingly on my face. I sense more than see the green shoots rising sleepily from the rapidly thawing ground as young trout lazily break the surface of the lake in pursuit of Mayflies that fall lifelessly to the water at the end of their brief but purposeful cycle.

I had waited for you so long after the first one. Waited with the knowledge that to repeat my actions too soon would only bring suspicion upon myself.

Forced to ignore the urges that I craved daily, I lived my life according to the narrow constraints that the rest of our community considered normal, but the waiting was hard. The desire inside me overwhelmed all others I possessed.

Even though temptation tormented me every day, I waited patiently until the time was right and when that time came, I chose you.

Once past the lake, we climbed the wooden steps to the old boathouse. They groaned under my weight. I held your small hand tightly in mine.

Inside the smell of the lake was concentrated, sour and earthy. Your sobs echoed around the building, off the wooden walls, skimming the surface of the lake like a flat stone.

I dragged you, kicking and screaming, to where I kept the ropes as I listened to the birdsong and the sound of the waves lapping the shore.

Although I heard your pleas, I was unable to stop; my desire was too strong.

Afterwards, however, I felt cheated. The pleasure was less intense than before. Perhaps something had been lost after that first time. Perhaps I had quenched my desire's thirst so completely with my first special child that I would never be able to gain the same intensity again.

I hoped not. I prayed the next time would be better, or even the time after that.

My breath is shallow and laboured, the effort to breath is becoming too much. I welcome death as I would a long lost friend. I have waited a long time for eternal darkness, for the release from this illness that eats away inside me.

Do I ask God's forgiveness for the things I have done?

Would he forgive me even if I did?

I doubt it, but then again, if God creates all creatures, is he not responsible for the way I am. He gave me the desires that have driven my life. You could argue that I have been doing his will.

I am not making excuses for my actions, I am not even sure I believe there is such a being as God. After all this time I have been able to look back and realise that I did not do those things because of a weakness of the mind or because of a momentary enraged anger, I did them because I wanted to; I needed to. That need has always been a part of me; it has shaped my character, my career, my life.

No, I do not ask for God's forgiveness, or for anyone else's for that matter. I do not fear that I will meet my maker when this disease finally steals my last breath. Death is an end and that is all. It is blackness, a void, nothing more.

And to death, I will take with me the bodies of those children. Even after all these years they still rest where I lay them.

Remember the tears?

Are all of you here? Is this the final farewell from all my special children?

Yes, I remember the tears. There have been so many tears in my life.

Over the years, I helped every one of your families search for their lost children as tears rolled from their eyes. I trod the very paths I had taken with you, their loved ones, only days before.

I comforted your mothers, your fathers, your siblings. I was a welcomed member of the search parties, and a welcomed member of the community. I knew you all so very well, I had taught in your school for all of your short lives. I had nurtured the love and trust of children and parents alike.

What is more, as I retraced those steps, my own tears flowed from my eyes; tears of joy for the pleasure you all had given me at the very end of your lives, tears of love for the feelings I had towards my special children.

Misunderstood, the families I had deceived and destroyed sought to comfort me, and my perceived grief drew me even closer to the families I had robbed of future happiness. They told me that they understood how I had grown so fond of their children having been with them every day in school.

How very little they really did understand. They could not know or imagine the feelings I had for their children; they could never understand how immense my fondness for their offspring was.

You were my children, perhaps even more completely than you had been to your mothers and fathers. For a fleeting moment at the end of your young lives, I was your world; all you saw and all you heard and all you felt. The power I felt was intoxicating.

For a small fraction of time, I was completely yours and you were completely mine.

Another dose of morphine filters into my bloodstream, but it is too late.

I look down at my empty body lying in the starched, white bed, in the sparsely furnished hospital room. I recognise the people standing around my deathbed. They all looked upon me as their friend, never really knowing me at all.

A nurse pulls the sheet high over my head as a symbol of my passing.

It is over and I wait for the darkness to swallow me up. I wait for the erasure of all thoughts from my mind and the replacement of all my memories with . . . nothing.

Remember us?

I am near the end now. Soon I will not hear your questions; I will not find your memories. There will be nothing of the past, present or future. There will only be a vacant shell lying in a hospital bed.

But yes, I remember you all in perfect clarity. I remember your smell, your touch and your sounds. The image of each face has been lovingly stored in my mind like treasured photographs in an album.

My memory is a scrapbook of emotions, visions and sounds; a book that I have flicked through repeatedly. The older I became the more I needed to remember. Although I have spent my life alone, I was never lonely. I had my memories, I remembered.

Now it is over, however. I no longer need those memories.

No more questions now, no more voices. There should only be deep black silence.

Where is the darkness that will take away these voices, these thoughts, and all thoughts? Where is the void that will submerge me into nothingness and let me be in peace?

Come with us.

What is happening? Where are you taking me? How can you pull me along when there is no longer anything of substance to any of us?

I can feel so many small, delicate hands pulling at me, dragging me towhere?

Down. They are pulling me down into the black void, but instead of welcoming it as I thought I would, it fills me with dread and fear.

I can see the lake, and just beyond, the boathouse, but they look different. I have never seen this place as I see it now. Gone is the bright yellow sun, gone is the crisp fresh snow. Everything is dead or dying, even the wooden structure of the boathouse is rotted and decaying.

Where has this memory come from?

Back to the lake, all the children have risen and united to drag me back to the lake.

It is so different now. There is no gentle sound of tranquil water lapping the shore, no joyful birdsong playing in the breeze. The noise I hear is frightening. It is the sound of tortured souls, the cry of the unforgiving.

Sweet Jesus, the lake is alive. There is a multitude of twisted featureless faces, writhing in the depths of the lake, foaming on the surface of the stagnant, fetid water and they are all looking at me. They are watching and waiting as the children drag me towards them.

Oh, God, their eyes, dark, bottomless pits, stare at me with loathing. Their mouths are constantly moving as though speaking silent curses.

Is this Hell?

I look towards my special children. They surround me and they are smiling.

And they are dragging me into the lake.